Southwest Airlines suddenly grounds scores of planes due to aircraft weight issues

Southwest Airlines abruptly grounded 66 Boeing 737 aircraft in its fleet last Wednesday after issues with the carrier’s aircraft weight records were discovered. In an internal memo to employees on the matter, Southwest said: “ (Wednesday) we discovered the weights being sent to our Dispatch Operation did not match our other weight records for a number of aircraft in the fleet. As a result, and out of an abundance of caution, we have stopped flying those aircraft to recalculate the weights of the aircraft in question and reset the program.” The groundings come just 2 months after the DoT Inspector General's office announced it was launching an investigation into whether FAA inspectors had been too lax in their safety and maintenance-related inspections and oversight at Southwest. <br/>